as small as the world
by shadesunrider13
Summary: A merchant ship sits at anchor offshore of Salamandastron, and Urthstripe learns that he's the only one in the mountain who doesn't dream of the outside world. Part 6 of Shifting the Sun: Tales from Salamandastron.


Everyone in Salamandastron knows to fear the sight of a ship at anchor. They have lost too many, suffered too much, to risk another loss at the hands of the wavescum. The mountain goes dormant at the sight of white sails on the horizon, watchfires quenched, doors barred, windows shuttered. The only place that remains open to the sky is the very rim of the mountain's crater, out of reach of spear or arrow or even cannon. It is from there that Urthstripe watches each vessel as they leave the deeps behind to try the shallows of the western shore.

He watches one now, a sleek vessel with sails billowing wide, as it cuts sideways through the waves at a speed he's never seen accomplished by a corsair barge or searat ship. No oars extend from its sides, which means no oarslaves chained to benches in its hull. It drops anchor perhaps half a league south of the mountain, and as Urthstripe watches, his paw gripping the hilt of his spear, the unknown ship runs up a green flag.

Urthstripe knows what this flag means, although he's never seen a ship raise it before. No ship would dare, as any wavescum worth their salt would take it as an open invitation to plunder. The green flag, in the blue world of the waves, means trade. He stares bemusedly at it, and all the while, another flag is being raised below it. This one is a good deal more intricate than the first, and it takes Urthstripe longer than it should to recognize it. After all, it's the same one stitched to his tunic, just above his heart. Salamandastron's flag.

In case the early message wasn't clear, a wish to trade broadcast when Salamandastron is the only habited place for leagues north or south, the Salamandastron flag beneath it makes things clearer still. This ship wishes to trade with Salamandastron.

Urthstripe's standing order, whenever a ship is sighted, is to close and lock all the sea-facing windows. Apparently it's a rule that's routinely bent, because no fewer than fourteen hares come charging up the stairs onto the rooftop. They're lead by the youngest of the Patrollers, the ones who have just been given their first weapons and fitted for their first uniforms. Lingfur, Barfle, Pennybright – they can barely hold still as they jostle for position before Urthstripe.

He leans his spear against the rim of the crater and crosses his paws over his chest. "Yes?"

"Can we, my Lord?" Pennybright bursts out, yanking on Barfle's ear in an effort to silence him long enough to speak. Barfle's not doing too badly himself – he's got Lingfur in a headlock.

"Can we what?" Urthstripe asks.

By way of a well-placed elbow in Pennybright's ribs, Barfle works himself free. "Trade with them – OUCH, Lingfur– sir?"

Urthstripe watches them, all wincing now from their various wounds. "Why?"

"Just to see, milord," Oxeye says from the back of the group. "Most of us, we were born here, and here's where we're goin' to spend our lives. That ship – the souls aboard have seen the world."

"So have I," Urthstripe says. There's nothing in the world that means more to him than Salamandastron.

"We haven't," Windpaw says. "Please, milord. It's just one ship. Just one day."

Urthstripe tries, not for the first time in his life, to imagine what it must feel like to have grown up inside an impenetrable fortress, never fearing for your life or wondering where your next meal will come from. To know that there is evil in the world, but to believe that it could not possibly outweigh the good. He can't decide if it's optimism or naivete. He can't decide if he disdains it or envies it.

In the end, though, the words of the elder members of the Long Patrol make his decision easy. "All right," he says, and Lingfur triumphantly slaps paws with Pennybright before snapping off a salute. "All of you may go, but in shifts – someone must always be on guard at the mountain. No one younger than four seasons will be allowed to go. You will be circumspect in the information you share about Salamandastron."

The hares of the Long Patrol watch him expectantly. At least a few of them seem to be scratching their heads over the meaning and usage of the word 'circumspect'. Urthstripe sighs. "You will all return to the mountain by sundown," he says. "And if you can, all of you should enjoy yourselves."

Urthstripe hears the laughter of the hares as they make their way down the stairs from the crater rim, and he wonders why he can't share in their happiness. Life in Salamandastron is stable, and although Urthstripe, always comfortable with his own thoughts, never finds it monotonous, he knows that the hares sometimes do. Why can't he find small joys in both the routine and the breaking of it? Why, when the world knocks at his isolated doorstep, does he wish only to shut it out?

Salamandastron's halls chime with laughter throughout the day, as the hares of the Long Patrol select belongings to trade, set off to the ship, and return with woundrous items and the stories behind them. The scents of exotic new spices drift up from the kitchen. Fleetpaw, Salamandastron's cook, was one of the first to visit the trader ship, and she clearly came off well in the trade. When she sends up Urthstripe's lunch, he can see that new spices, yellow and green and bright red, have been added to the typically plain oatscone, roasted potatoes, shellfish gathered from the rocks that lay exposed at low tide.

He hesitates a long moment before he tastes it. It's…good. Different, but good.

It's midafternoon before Mara comes to see him. As has been happening more and more often in Urthstripe's interactions with her, she's unhappy. "How come I can't go?"

"Mara, you are only three seasons old," Urthstripe says. "You have not yet begun to learn weaponry, and the older Patrollers will likely be too distracted to keep a proper watch on you. It is for your safety, Browneye. It is nothing personal."

"Feels like it." Mara scuffs her paw against the ground. Urthstripe feels guilt settle its familiar shawl around his shoulders. He's disappointed her. Again.

He's expecting her to leave, to storm off in a huff or sulk down the hall. Instead she sighs a sigh that sounds too old for too few seasons and leans against the rough-hewn doorframe. "Have you gone?"

"No," Urthstripe says.

"Are you going to?"

"I – I hadn't planned on it," Urthstripe says haltingly. "Why?"

"Because it's something _new_," Mara says. "Something different. Something – not from here. Anyone who has the chance to see that should go."

The way she speaks of Salamandastron, his home, the only place he's felt safe, tightens Urthstripe's throat. "Do you truly hate it here so much?"

"No," Mara says. She lifts her eyes to him – no, not him, past him, to the furled sails of the ship. "It's just that here is all I know."

She's not wrong. She's too young to remember crying all day and all night, alone amidst the dunes; too young to remember hunger and thirst clawing her in half. Too young to remember waiting for help, with no help coming. If she remembered, she would not long for the ship, and the _world_. Urthstripe scrubs at his eyes with one massive paw, trying to clear his thoughts in the process. He tries to imagine himself, with Mara's life. "If I go," he hears himself say, "what would you want me to bring back?"

Mara looks up. "For me?"

"For you," Urthstripe confirms, and he sees her expression lighten.

"Something pretty," she says. "Something with a good story."

Urthstripe nods, and Mara eyes him from the doorway. Urthstripe's fairly certain she's trying to gauge whether he actually means to go. He stands up and surveys the few items he's forged over the years that aren't weaponry, trying to decide what to bring for trade. "I will go," he says to Mara. "I will go now."

She's gone by the time he turns around, a few potential trade items tucked under his arm. But as she disappears around the corner, he catches the faintest glimpse of her smile.

Urthstripe is worried about going to the ship. He's worried that, in spite of a steady stream of hares going to and returning from the ship all day, it's a trap. He's worried that the goods he's brought to trade will not be valued enough to win a pretty thing and a story. He's worried that the ship, which seems much smaller when he's standing inside its hold, will not support his weight. And most of all, he's worried that his definition of a pretty thing and a good story will not match Mara's, and he'll end up disappointing her again.

The trader is a rat, which sets off alarm bells in Urthstripe's head, but as far as he can tell, the rat isn't armed. A single bronze earring hangs from his ear, and he eyes the copper bracelet in Urthstripe's paw with interest. "Is that pure?"

"Pure copper oxidizes, and loses its color," Urthstripe says. In fact, that's why he's brought this item – not only is it frivolous, it comes with an expiration date. "You don't want pure copper. It does not age well."

"Well, if it come to that, none of us do," the rat says, his ears twitching. "Or do you mean t' say the only things worth summat live forever?"

Urthstripe hits his head on the ceiling. "No," he says, headstripes aching. "What will you give me for the bracelet?"

The rat gestures around the hold. "What do you want?"

There are numerous pretty things. Rich rolls of fabric, hand-woven tapestries in a multitude of sizes, barrels of spices, garlands of dried fruit, piles of smooth stones, a small array of jewelry in silver and bronze. Pretty things, a hundred things Mara might want, all of them with stories behind them. He has no time to hear them all. He points at a shelf behind the rat's head, his eye having fallen on an item there. The sight of it calls to mind the windowsill in Mara's room, scattered with dull, delicate objects. "That," he says, and the rat lifts it down. "Tell me about it."

The rat opens his mouth, and Urthstripe cuts him off before he can even speak. "In detail."

"Well," the rat says, "far away over the horizon to the east there's a warm sea, not like this cold sea here. A mild sea, a kind sea, and the things that grow there grow bright and beautiful. In the sunset coral of that sea lives this creature, a gentle giant…"

Urthstripe listens more carefully than he's ever listened to any vermin. He hits his head a dozen times more on the deck above him, and when Mara asks him about this small piece of the wider world, he's certain he'll only be able to remember the small, cramped world of the ship's hold. But he listens, and he remembers every word. "I'll take it."

The rat wraps it in a length of cheap cloth that's nonetheless brighter than nearly every cloth they weave and dye in Salamandastron. "Are you a collector of such things?"

"No," Urthstripe says. "It's for my daughter."

It's more than he meant to say to the rat. More than he would ever mean to say to vermin. The rat doesn't react, doesn't even look up from his wrapping job. "I got myself a daughter, too," he says. He points at the bracelet he's just bartered from Urthstripe. "That 'un's for her."

Urthstripe looks up, startled, and hits his head on the ceiling for the thirteenth time. He stares across the hold at the rat, recognizing in this creature from a world away a piece of himself. It unsettles him. He picks up his purchase in its bright wrappings and tucks it under his arm. "I hope she finds it agreeable," he says, and he leaves.

On the beach once again he sucks in a breath, eager to get clear of the ship for more reasons than one. He's never thought about where vermin come from. Of course he knew they didn't spring from the ground fully formed, but he's never thought of them as being parents, of having daughters. It's a strange feeling, and although he tries to leave it behind on the seashore, he can't quite shake it off.

Mara's smile when she unwraps it is something he's seen too rarely as of late. "A seashell!" she says. "Like in my collection! How did you know?"

"It is called a Sea God's Trumpet," Urthstripe explains, watching as she runs her paws over its glossy surface. "It comes from far away. Over the horizon, to the east, there is a warm sea. A mild sea, a kind sea, and the things that grow there grow bright and beautiful. This shell housed the gentle giant of that sea…"

He tells Mara the same story the rat told him, as closely as he can remember it, and watches as her eyes widen along with her smile. He tries to make this piece of the world feel as new and different to her as it did to him, for a completely different set of reasons. Let her feel wonder, not uncertainty. Let her imagine that the world is as wonderful as she imagines, not different than she expected. Let it be easier for her. Let her never sit here, consumed with doubt, wondering if he has been looking at the world all along through a distorted lens.

Urthstripe tries to settle it in his head. Vermin, who he has always encountered as thieves and murderers and brigands, can live as traders, with daughters who ask for gifts from a different world. If that's so, is it possible that somewhere there are badgers who murder and lie and steal? Urthstripe doesn't like that thought any more than he likes the idea that he's robbed countless vermin families, villainous though they may be, of their children, mothers, fathers. He wonders if he's growing soft, if the years of peace have made him forget what the vast majority of vermin are like. He wonders why it bothers him it all.

At dinner that night he hears the hares sharing their stories and their trades, sees the swathes of bright colors and strange objects at the table, tastes the strange new spices in the food. He sees them talking together, young and old, more than they have in a long time. Beside him, Mara bounces in her seat, her shell balanced on the table beside her, asking Urthstripe question after question about the ship, about the traders, about all the items up for trade. The dining hall is close and lively, conversation filling the room. Urthstripe listens, just as he and Mara listen to the song of the sea they hear when they lift the shell to their ears. And he wonders how a piece of the wider world could make Salamandastron feel small.


End file.
